It was always my understanding that Trotsky sabotaged the Brest-Litvosk treaty with his adventurist slogan of “no peace no war” at which point the Germans resumed war and annexed more of the USSR

Then the CC removed Trotsky from the talks and signed an even more punishing peace treaty

Volume 27 of Lenins collected works confirms this point of view with the following.

However Trots have pointed out these footnotes are writtin by MLs

I was wondering if anyone had any material that confirmed the below?

Lenin, volume 27 http://www.marx2mao.com/PDFs/Lenin CW-Vol. 27.pdf

To pre-vent the collapse of the peace negotiations and to stop the adven-turistic policy of the “Left Communists” and Trotsky being put into effect, Lenin got the Central Committee of the Party to pass a decision on the need for sustaining the peace negotiations for as long as possible and signing the peace terms only if the Ger-mans should present an ultimatum. On January 27 (February 9),however, when the Germans demanded in the form of an ultimatum that the Soviet delegation should sign the peace terms they had proposed on January 5 (18), Trotsky, who was leading the Soviet delegation at this stage, ignored the Central Committee’s decision and in spite of Lenin’s demand refused to sign the peace treaty while stating simultaneously that Russia would cease waging war and would demobilise her army.

Page 15

<An important place in the volume is occupied by docu-ments aimed against the provocatory policy of Trotsky and the “Left Communists”, a policy of involving the young Soviet Republic, which as yet had no army, in war. Included among these documents are the articles: “The Revolutionary Phrase”, “Peace or War?”, “A Painful but Necessary Lesson”,“Strange and Monstrous”, “On a Businesslike Basis”, “A Serious Lesson and a Serious Responsibility”, and also the reports and replies to debates on the question of peace at the Seventh Party Congress and the Extraordinary Fourth Congress of Soviets. Lenin’s pamphlet “Left-Wing” Childishness and the Petty-Bourgeois Mentality sums up the results of the strugglewith the “Left Communists” over the Brest peace and domes-tic policy, and shows that the “Left Communists” expressed the interests of the “frenzied petty bourgeois” and were“instruments of imperialist provocation”

P.561, 562 and 563

Lenin and the members of the Central Committee who supported him were striving to bring Soviet Russia out of the imperialist war. The principles on which Lenin’s position was based were most fully expressed in his Theses on the Question of the Immediate Conclusion of a Separate and Annexationist Peace (see present edition, Vol. 26, pp. 442-50). The conclusion of the Brest peace was opposed by a group of “Left Communists” led by N. I. Bu-kharin. L. D. Trotsky took up a position close to that of the “Left Communists”.
<The “Left Communists”, who held leading posts in the Moscow, Petrograd, Urals and some other Party organisations, launched a violent campaign against Lenin’s policy. The Moscow Regional Bureau passed a resolution expressing distrust of the Party Central Committee and made what Lenin described as the “strange and monstrous” statement (see this volume, pp.68-75) that it would be expedient in the interests of international revolution to “accept the possibility of losing Soviet power”.The adventuristic slogans of the “Left Communists” were rejected by the majority of lower Party organisations. By the time the Congress took place Lenin’s policy of concluding peace enjoyed the support of the majority of Party organisations. Such were the conditions in which the Congress assembled. Of the delegates attending the Congress 47 had a vote and 59 had voice but no vote; they represented over 170,000 Party members,including members of the big Party organisations—Moscow, Pet-rograd, Urals and Volga Region. By the time the Congress opened the Party numbered nearly 300,000 members (50 per cent more than at the time of the Sixth Congress). But a considerable number of organisations were unable to send delegates because of the haste with which the Congress was assembled, or were unable to do so because of the temporary occupation of various parts of the country by the Germans. The agenda and procedure were considered on March 5 at a pre-luminary meeting of delegates. At this first meeting the Congress approved the following agenda: report of the Central Committee;the question of war and peace; revision of the Programme and changing the name of the Party; organisational matters; election of the Central Committee. Lenin directed all the work of the Congress. He delivered the Central Committee’s political report and the report on revision of the Programme and changing the name of the Party, and took part in discussing all questions on the agenda. Altogether he spoke18 times. After the Central Committee’s political report the leader of the“Left Communists” Bukharin delivered the second report, in which he upheld the adventuristic demand for war with Germany. Eighteen delegates took part in the hard-hitting debate on the two reports. Lenin was supported by Y. M. Sverdlov, F. A. Ser-geyev (Artyom), I. T. Smilga, the delegate from Yaroslavl Roza-nova, and others.
<Some of the “Left Communists” were moved byte force of Lenin’s arguments to revise their position. Having unanimously approved the Central Committee’s report,the Congress went on to discuss the resolution on war and peace. The Congress rejected the “Theses on the Present Situation”, which had been submitted as a resolution by the “Left Communists”.A signed vote was taken and by 30 votes to 12 with 4 abstentions Lenin’s resolution on the Brest peace was passed (see this volume,pp. 118-19).The Congress discussed the question of revising the Programme and changing the name of the Party. Lenin delivered a report on these subjects. The basis of his report was his “Rough Outline of the Draft Programme” (see this volume, pp. 152-58), which had been handed round to the delegates at the beginning of the Congress. Lenin pointed out that the name of the Party should reflect its aims, and proposed renaming the Party the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and altering its Programme. The Congress voted unanimously in favour of Lenin’s resolution and approved his proposal for the name of the Party.
<The Congress elected a seven-man commission headed by Lenin to draw up the final ver-sion of the new Programme. By a secret vote the Congress elected a Central Committee consisting of 15 members and 8 candidates. The “Left Communists”N. I. Bukharin, A. Lomov (G. I. Oppokov) and M. S. Uritsky,who were elected to the Central Committee, stated at the Con-gress that they would not work in the Central Committee, and didnot begin work there for several months in spite of the insistentdemands of the Central Committee. The Seventh Party Congress was of immense historical impor-tance. It affirmed the correctness of the Leninist principles of the foreign policy to be pursued by the Soviet State, the policy of gaining a peaceful respite; it routed the disorganisers of the Party, the “Left Communists” and the Trotskyites, and set the Communist Party and the working class to solve the basic tasks of socialist construc-tion. The decisions of the Congress were widely discussed in the local Party organisations and were generally approved in spite of the continued disrupting activities of the “Left Communists”.The Extraordinary Fourth All-Russia Congress of Soviets, which was held soon afterwards (March 14-16), ratified the Peace Treaty of Brest.

G J Meyer confirms this viewpoint in his work

The Russians were shocked by what was demanded of them in the aftermath of this meeting. Trotsky threw up his hands, telling the Germans that he would never agree to what they wanted and urging Lenin to adopt a “no war, no peace” policy in which Russia would neither continue to fight nor agree to Germany’s terms. When the negotiations broke down completely, the Germans swiftly put fifty divisions back into motion along the Eastern Front. The Russians were so helpless that the Germans, though their best men and equipment were now in France, advanced a hundred and fifty miles in five days. The Turks, also unimpeded, advanced through the Caucasus to oil-rich Baku in Azerbaijan. The Ukrainian capital of Kiev fell to the Germans on March 1. Trotsky, furious, said that Russia should rejoin the Entente and resume the war. Lenin, fearing the capture of Petrograd and the destruction of his fledgling regime, moved his government to Moscow and said no. On March 3 the Russian delegation, with Trotsky no longer participating, signed at Brest-Litovsk one of the most punitive peace treaties in history. Russia relinquished (not to Germany but to puppet regimes to be put in place by Germany) Courland, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Livonia, Poland, Ukraine, and White Russia (or Belarus). With these territories went something on the order of fifty million people, a third of the old empire’s population, and hundreds of thousands of square miles. Russia also lost a third of its rail system and agricultural land, more than half of its industry, three-fourths of its iron ore, and nine-tenths of its coal mines. The Russians agreed to demobilize what remained of their armies.